John Brown got a clutch basket from Luke Moyer with 8.8 seconds remaining to tie Thursday's game against Southwestern Christian 59-59.
SCU's Mikel Parish then made an even bigger play to lead his team to a victory.
Parish's runner in the lane with 2 seconds left gave Southwestern Christian a 61-59 victory and John Brown lost its second straight home game inside Bill George Arena.
After Moyer's basket to tie the game, Parish drove the length of the floor, crossed inside the 3-point line and dribbled in the lane and scored to give SCU the lead.
JBU head coach Jason Beschta gave credit to Parish for making a play.
"Defensively you don't want to foul," Beschta said. "You don't want to give an open look. You want to force a contested look like that. (Parish) got a little deeper than I probably would have liked, but he made a great shot. That's what we're asking for at the end is make them make a tough shot if they're going to pull that one out, and he did that."
Moyer tried to heave a shot at the final buzzer but it missed and Southwestern Christian held on for the victory.
"We hung on despite a lot of adversity," said first-year Southwestern Christian head coach Dave Bliss, the former NCAA coach of New Mexico, Southern Methodist, Oklahoma and Baylor. "We got some people hurt. We got into foul trouble. A lot of things happen on the road. The only thing that we're grateful for is we made our last shot."
JBU led 36-33 at halftime, but Southwestern Christian (11-9, 7-4) opened the second half on a 6-0 run to take a lead for most of the second half.
JBU (11-12, 4-7) tied the game twice late in the second half on a 3-pointer from Griffin Brady and a jump shot from Zach English before falling behind 59-55. Brady hit two free throws to make it 59-57 setting up Moyer's game-tying layup.
Brady led John Brown with 15 points and 10 rebounds, while Ricky Roberts scored 11. JBU hit 18 of 59 from the field but only 8 of 33 from behind the 3-point line. After only four turnovers in the first half, JBU had 11 turnovers in the second half.
"I thought we came apart there for a while in the second half when things got bad," Beschta said. "I was proud of the fact that the way we did come back together. But we're just not going to win games when we have a half with 11 turnovers like we did in the second half, and we're not going to win games when it's an improvement to shoot 33 percent in a half."
Marvin White led Southwestern Christian with 16 points, while James Still had 11 and Shawn Scott 10. Southwestern Christian led by as many as 11 points in the second half.
The two teams split the season series with each team winning on the road. JBU beat Southwestern Christian 88-77 on Jan. 14.
"We couldn't put them away," Bliss said. "I was getting frustrated because we couldn't run offense, but it was because they were playing very well defensively. We had a little more success guarding them than we had the first time."
JBU was back in action on Saturday at Wayland Baptist (Texas). Results were not available at presstime. The Golden Eagles return to Texas this week for games Thursday at Texas Wesleyan and Saturday at Southwestern Assemblies of God.
Southwestern Christian 61, John Brown 59
Southwestern Christian^33^28^--^61
John Brown^36^23^--^59
Southwestern Christian (11-9, 7-4): White 16, Still 11, Scott 10, Parish 9, Laurent 8, Mayon 7.
John Brown (11-12, 4-7): Brady 15, Roberts 11, Bowling 7, Caudle 6, Moyer 5, Smith 5, English 4, Joseph 2, Martinez 2, Waller.
Sports on 02/07/2016